The spunlace market is growing. Despite oversupply in some regions, experts say that the industry is optimistic about future capacity utilization.

Much of this optimism is stemming from the flushable wipes sector. Rising awareness of moist toilet tissue among consumers continues to grow, thus driving nonwovens producers to expand their technologies in this part of the business.

“The flushable wipes requested by the global market have experienced a boom, and many converters are looking for wipes with such characteristics,” says Andre Michalon, sales director of Andritz Perfojet.

Andritz extended its portfolio 20 years ago with a new configuration for its hydroentanglement unit, fully adapted to the production of flushable wipes, known as Wetlace. “Our Wetlace technology based on wood pulp is known to produce proper flushable products for sustainable wipes, which is very important for the market,” he adds.

While there is a lot of interest in flushable substrates, since a flurry of new capacity is being added to serve this market area, there’s significantly more capacity in place than there is market demand for flushable wipes, according to David Price, partner, Price Hanna Consultants. “Just like in spunbond polypropylene, line capacities of new spunlace technology are typically large and not likely to be fully consumed right away as a result of these large line capacity installations,” he adds.

Some investments, particularly on the flushable side, might be ahead of the market, he points out, but there is a great deal of optimism in the wipes substrate arena both for standard wipes substrates, since those markets are growing, assisted by boarder and deeper market penetration. “I think this is fostered by improving economic conditions around the world, both in developed and developing markets, the interest in flushable wipes, market penetration in hygiene, etc., but that has led to some oversupply in some selected regions, but probably more on a temporary basis.”

One company trying to capitalize on growth in the flushable wipes category is private label wipes manufacturer EcoWipes. The Polish company, which also manufactures its own nonwovens, recently ordered its third nonwovens production line.

Because of the rising consumer interest in biodegradable materials, EcoWipes opted for a Trützschler Nonwovens and Voith wetlaid spunlacing (WLS) line. The sustainable concept developed by the two companies for manufacturing wetlaid hydroentangled nonwovens is an ideal fit for the company’s product range. It can produce both flushable wipes and recyclable and biodegradable products.

The new production line is a flexible wet-dry nonwoven facility. Voith is supplying the HydroFormer, one of the main components of the new line. With HydroFormer technology the suspension is highly diluted, so nonwovens can be produced entirely from cellulose, a renewable and cost-effective raw material.

Trützschler Nonwovens is not just responsible for the hydroentangling, drying and reeling up, but will also supply its latest high-speed card. This flexible configuration enables EcoWipes to produce a broad product range of wetlaid/spunlaced or carded/spunlaced nonwovens.

Meanwhile, Finnish spunlace specialist Suominen announced last month that it would invest €6 million in its plant in Green Bay, WI. The investment involves installation of new carding machinery on an existing spunlace production line. It will improve the capabilities of the plant and further support Suominen in the development and supply of new innovative products.

Once upgraded, the production line will improve Suominen’s ability to supply high value-added nonwovens for home care, personal care and workplace wipes as well as for hygiene applications, all categories in which Suominen seeks growth. The investment also offers more efficient supply of nonwovens for baby wipes to Suominen’s customers.

At the time of the announcement, Nina Kopola, president and CEO, said: “The investment again demonstrates that we are serious about growth, in line with our changemaker strategy. This is a clear upgrade to Suominen’s current production technology base, expanding our product offering globally and increasing our production capacity. In the long run, we can increase the share of nonwovens with high value added coming out of the Green Bay plant.”

Suominen operates two spunlace lines at this site.

Also investing in spunlace is Turkish nonwovens producer Mogul, which opened its latest investment, Mogul South Carolina Nonwovens, early last year. Located in Grey Court, SC, the facility operates a 3.2 meter, high-speed parallel laid spunlace line with 15,000 tons of annual capacity. The investment, Mogul’s first outside of Turkey, will help meet demand for Mogul’s nonwovens technologies in the wipes, hygiene, filtration and automotive markets.

By expanding into the U.S. market, the company says it has positioned itself to better serve existing customers and capitalize on the growing need for high quality nonwovens in North and South America as well as in the Asia-Pacific.

Mogul also recently increased its nonwoven spunlace production by adding a crosslapped spunlace line at its plant in Luleburgaz near Istanbul, Turkey. The crosslapped product, introduced under the brand name Durell, supplements Mogul’s existing production of Aqualace parallel-laid spunlace. The new crosslapped line brings high performance products into Mogul’s range of spunlace products.

According to Mogul, crosslapped spunlace technology differs from parallel laid spunlace in that the crosslapper forms a web by laying down the carded fiber at a 90-degree angle to the line’s direction. In a parallel-laid process the carded fiber is laid down parallel to the line’s direction. Through this crosslapping of the web, the resultant spunlace achieves similar tensile strength in both machine direction (MD) and cross direction (CD).

Mogul CEO Serkan Gogus says the new line will serve wipes, automotive, artificial leather, medical, depilation strips and other applications.

Also expanding in the market is Jacob Holm, which announced this year that it would invest more than €2 million in its Asturias, Spain, production facility. The site, which was acquired from DuPont in 2012, manufactures Sontara spunlace nonwovens. The expansion will increase the number of products made at the site using newly installed production technology.

The company reports that the new asset will allow it to pursue increasingly broad technological growth by providing advanced capabilities to tailor the performance of its products with more accuracy within a broader potential specification set. This advancement offers customers access to a significantly expanded range of customization options and new fabric properties for performance critical applications.

Spotlight on Asia
Experts agree that today’s spunlace market is centered on Asia. China is, in fact, the largest spunlace market in the world.

“China is the center of the world for spunlace nonwoven production and will likely continue to be,” says David Price. “It’s the region with the largest amount of spunlace nonwoven capacity. There’s expanding and growing use of spunlace substrates in China and in Asia Pacific, as well as exports to other regional markets.”

In the last year, spunlace machinery supplier Trützschler Nonwovens has seen quite a few investments in new lines, especially in China and East Asia. One factor at play here is the rising middle classes in China, Japan and South Korea, which is purchasing more and more convenience goods, such as personal care and household wipes, as well as hygiene products. “Softness and natural materials play important roles and we see the trend towards using cotton fibers for a broad range of untypical end products,” says Marc Wolpers, managing director sales for Trützschler Nonwovens & Man-Made Fibers. “A success, for instance, are spunlaced ‘cotton tissues.’ This consumer behavior drives growth to a large extent.”

Wolpers observes efficiency as another factor in new spunlace investments. “Older lines lack competitiveness because of their limited speeds,” he says. “Since, especially, carding technology made huge progress in the last 10 years, it pays for producers to shut down older lines and invest in new ones.”

Andritz’s Michalon agrees that 2017 was an extraordinary year for spunlace investment in Asia, with China establishing itself as the clear leader. “The increase in living standards in the region, growing urbanization, and the end of the single-child policy at the end of 2015 have definitively contributed to the rise in spunlace investments,” he adds.

The ending of the single-child policy pushed Chinese spunlace producers to make new investments, anticipating future market demand, Michalon explains. “Top spunlace producers in China only made a few investments in 2014 and 2015,” he says. “[After ending the one-child policy] they invested in a new generation of spunlace lines, not just for the domestic market but also for worldwide demand.”

Finally, Michalon adds, the evolution of the Chinese economy from being export-oriented to being oriented towards domestic consumption is also affecting the spunlace market in the country.

German nonwovens producer Sandler is also seeing a lot of spunlace investment in Asia. Carolin Weber, Sandler’s sales director Hygiene & Wipes, says China will have a big influence on the market. “It goes without saying that we will be monitoring the developments closely,” she adds.

While Chinese spunlace capacity is being consumed internally due to the rising middle class, some is making its way to the west.

“Clearly China is exporting to North America,” Price says. “It’s not to the extent that it’s overwhelming local producers, but certainly China spunlace nonwovens are being exported to North America particularly, and to a much lesser extent into Europe.”

More Than Wipes
Wipes is certainly the largest market for spunlace, and for most spunlace producers, it’s the biggest market for their output.

“Nowadays, there are wipes for almost every discernible use in our everyday lives: from baby care to cosmetics, from car care to furniture polish or the cleaning of computer screens,” Sandler’s Weber says. “Being readily available and easy to use, even on the go, demand is likely to continue. Although supply matches demand in the main segments, there is still opportunity for further development through visual differentiation with print or embossed motifs, as well as through enhanced functionality, innovative product structures or combinations or different properties.”

Although wipes continues to consume the lion’s share of spunlace, the material is making its way into other applications.

Price acknowledges that there are extensions of spunlace into other markets outside of wipes, particularly in hygiene. “I think much of this is driven by some excess capacity in some regions, some significant market development by spunlace nonwovens producers and their efforts to both achieve product line extension and expansion and further utilization of equipment,” he says. Although, spunlace used in hygiene ADL and other hygiene diaper components remains relatively small, he adds.

For its part, Mogul has been trying to focus on technical applications and hygiene. “We have observed an interest for spunlace in the hygiene market, and if this becomes a growing trend, this will significantly change this business,” says Gogus.

Another growing market Mogul is observing for spunlace is medical. “Due to the softness, absorbency, and controllable stretch properties, spunlace certainly has a place in medical and healthcare applications against the skin,” says Jonathan Layer, Mogul’s business development manager – Americas. “We’ve leveraged our team’s background in pharma to build a comprehensive micro lab to ensure our products are clean and with extremely low micro burden before going into these critical applications.”

While a small portion of Suominen’s sales are outside of wipes—its Care business area manufactures nonwovens for hygiene products and medical applications—wipes comprise over 90% of its net sales, which fall under its Convenience business area.

“Wipes is our core market and where we have chosen to play,” says Ernesto S. Levy, Suominen’s senior vice president of Convenience business area.

Suominen’s focus is on baby, personal care, home and workplace wiping markets, and Levy says that, overall, the wipes market continues to show healthy signs of growth as consumers around the globe search for more convenience.

Baby wipes are growing as populations grow; this is especially seen in South America and Asia, according to Levy. Further, home and personal care are continuing to grow as new innovative products deliver home cleaning and beauty solutions with a higher degree of specialization. And, he acknowledges, while consumers continue to drive growth in moist toilet tissue, waste water systems around the world want products that can disperse like toilet paper. “We are innovating in each one of these markets,” he says.

Meanwhile, Welspun is fast emerging as an innovative company claiming success on my fronts, in hygiene, wipes, cleanroom, aerospace, etc. The Indian spunlace manufacturer has recently developed a nonwoven called Comfina (patent pending), which is engineered for feminine care and diaper applications. “Recently we have had good success with Comfina, and we are eyeing to grow our spunlace business in these segments,” says Welspun CEO Milind Hardikar.

In wipes, Welspun offers brands that are specially engineered for specific applications, including Welicate, 3DSwipe and FibroSplit. Welicate is described as super soft and delicate—ideal for baby wipes; 3DSwipe is a robust and efficient wiper developed for high performance cleaning; and FibroSplit is strong and non linting, designed for clean room and aerospace applications.

In aerospace, a 100% cotton-based nonwoven from Welspun has been certified by a reputed U.S.-based lab.

“We have been working on developing natural fiber-based nonwovens for aerospace applications,” says Hardikar. “Our product meets aerospace material standards (AMS) and Boeing material specification (BMS). We are excited with this development and looking forward to serve the aerospace requirements.”

The product is certified for low linting and high absorbency and effectively tackles tough cleaning surfaces. It is free from silicon, having no static properties and has been tested for solvent compatibility. With encouraging results for its initial product, Welspun is set to launch a range of products developed for aerospace cleaning.

Back in the U.S., Bondex Inc., is using spunlace in filtration and other specialty applications. Part of industrial filtration specialist Andrew Industries, Bondex invested $20 million in an expansion to add hydroentangled spunlace products to its existing portfolio in 2016. Previously, the company’s range included flat and point bonded thermal nonwovens and various laminated and coated products.

The spunlace process technology from Trützschler includes a 400 bar high pressure hydroentangling unit fed by a fiber processing line. These assets provide Bondex with the capability to produce a wide range of spunlace fabrics from various fiber systems including PPS, meta and para aramid, PET, PP and polyimide in weights ranging from 20 to 600g/m² and in widths up to 225cm (88”). The investment also included a wide range of finishing equipment such as singeing, calendering, laminating, chemical impregnation, heat setting and slitting.

Among the new products from the line is Hydrolox, a technology for the industrial filtration market.

According to Bondex, historically, industrial filtration felt was produced through a traditional needle loom, which has met some market needs with a specific balance of properties. Hydrolox filter media combines the benefits of needle loom fiber entangling with revolutionary hydroentangling technology to deliver industry leading dust collection performance. The phenomena of entangling fibers with high pressure water jets creates a unique balance of lower pore size in a strong media.

Hydrolox represents a new paradigm in filtration by delivering a product with dramatically improved filtration efficiency, an inherent ability to promote surface dust collection, lower pressure drop over time, and reduction in pulse cycle times. Additionally, Hydrolox HCE is available as a family of filtration media using fine fibers that deliver even higher collection efficiency performance, comparable to membrane laminated needlefelt.

The hard surface disinfectant (HSD) wipes market continues to grow at a rapid pace of 5-7% per year globally1. Initially the growth was fueled by convenience and time savings, but as the market has begun to mature, innovation is increasingly integral…

George Gonzalez, Marketing Manager for Hygiene and Preservation, Lonza Inc.09.18.17

Cookies help us to provide you with an excellent service. By using our website, you declare yourself in agreement with our use of cookies. You can obtain detailed information about the use of cookies on our website by clicking on "More information”.